Songoftheday 4/30/19 - I would dial the numbers just to listen to your breath, I would stand inside my hell and hold the hand of death...
from the album Yes I Am (1993)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #25 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 26
Today's song of the day comes from rock singer/songwriter Melissa Etheridge, who grew up in Kansas to modest means, and started her music career when she moved to Boston to attend the revered Berklee College of Music. She didn't finish there, though, and again relocated to Los Angeles, where gigging in bars eventually led her to a deal with Island Records. Her self-titled debut album was released in 1988, and suffice it to say it her style of heartland rock with a gruff and decidedly female voice was something really never heard before. I remember turning my head when hearing her debut single "Bring Me Some Water" on Philly rock radio for the first time, and mouth agape, thinking "WHO IS THAT" seemingly possessed and tortured woman in love. That style was exclusively male, with the Mellencamps and Springsteens on down to the Henry Lee Summers and Steve Earles scoring hit after hit with this rhythm guitar-led rock. "Bring Me Some Water" ended up climbing to #10 on the Mainstream Rock radio chart. Four songs from her debit appeared on that chart, with third offering "Similar Features", with the same brooding passion, hitting #6 on the rock chart and becoming her first pop success, slipping in at #94 on the Hot 100 chart. Internationally, she was also getting buzz, with "Bring Me Some Water" landing in the top ten in Australia at #9, reaching the top-40 in the New Zealand (#17) and Canada (#34), and even slipping on to become her first British hit at #100. The song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Performance, which she lost to Tina Turner's Tina Live In Europe album. Also album track "Like The Way I Do", which hit #28 on American rock radio, granted Melissa her first Dutch top-40 hit at #16, and also making #16 in Australia and #17 in New Zealand.
With the great and organic reception of her debut album, Etheridge returned the following year with her sophomore effort Brave and Crazy. A more polished album that still retained her passionate vocal delivery, the lead single "No Souvenirs" again pierced the American pop Hot 100 at #95, while in Canada the song climbed all the way to #4. It was also her first song to cross over to the Alternative Rock chart at #18, while landing her third top ten Mainstream Rock hit at #9. The entire album was nominated again for a Grammy, which went to Bonnie Raitt's unstoppable Nick Of Time album, and the following year, the album track "The Angels" was nommed on its own, losing out to Alannah Myles' #1 hit "Black Velvet".
In 1992, Melissa released her third album, Never Enough. While the first single, "Ain't It Heavy", again scored a top ten Mainstream Rock radio hit at #10, the harder-edged song missed the pop chart (but did go to #9 in Canada), and no other singles made that list, though she got her first hit on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") chart with "Dance Without Sleeping". And while the album itself was her third to peak right under the top-20 on the American sales chart, she finally won her first Grammy Award for "Ain't It Heavy" in 1993.
But during the promotion/tour for Never Enough, the biggest change in Etheridge's life happened when she officially came out of the closet at the beginning of 1993. For a woman in the rock genre to do that was huge, especially one in the rising stage of her career. I mean, it wasn't totally a shock to most, but the positive response to her honesty was full and reassuring. Later that year, Melissa released her fourth album Yes I Am, of course a wink and a nod to her life in the album title. On rock radio, the song "I'm The Only One" was promoted as the lead track and rose to #10 on the Mainstream Rock list (it would later become a bigger pop hit). But it would be the follow-up, "Come To My Window", that would open up mainstream radio for her. Written by Etheridge, who produced the track with Hugh Padgham, the song explicitly calls out for a lover for a little night action, and the fact that you knew damn well the gender of who she's aiming for was ground-freaking-breaking. The powerful music video starred Juliette Lewis as a captive mental patient...
"Come To My Window" became Melissa's first top-40 pop hit in August of 1994. The song also rose to #22 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart, and crossed over to make it to #4 on their Adult Contemporary chart. Internationally, the single peaked at #13 in Canada. And in 1995, the song won the Female Rock Vocal Performance Grammy for her second time.
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Here's Melissa in concert behind the Yes I Am album in 1993...
...and again live in 2002...
Let's make it a hat trick with a show in 2010...
Here she is on her A Little Bit Of Me TV concert on AXS...
and finally, just Melissa and her guitar on Ellen...
Up tomorrow: Latino pop singer questions your leaving.
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